Thursday, February 25, 2010
Alex Kugushev spoke to us recently on an immigrant's view on adaptive America. In this second talk, he will focus on how the Italian civilization's incomparable achievements arose from an unparalleled superabundance of talent among its common people. He plans to trace the evolution of Italian civilization through four stages, up to and through the Rinascimento. He will begin with the transition from the Dark Ages into the first efflorescence in the 11th century; will follow by considering the crucial decade in the 13th century, which culminates with Dante and Giotto; and will conclude with the Rinascimento explosion of the 15th into the early 16th century. For each political transition he will consider the underlying social and cultural factors and examine the intellectual, political and artistic results.
Alex was born in France, and educated successively in Yugoslavia, Austria, Switzerland, and Argentina. The son of political emigres, growing up in a Europe rent by conflicts between the two World Wars, he experienced a fair share of life's ups and downs. He is a journalist by trade and a publisher by profession. He has authored Resilient America: An Immigrant Examines our Nation's Adaptive Continuity. Since speaking to us in December, Alex has become one of the newest members of Il Cenacolo.
|
|